Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends a touching summer story, classic King and Longmire’s latest.

The Summer Book

By Tove Jansson
NYRB Classics
$15.95
May 2008
Purchase

From the publisher: Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer—its sunlight and storms—into 22 crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a 6-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia’s grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Opening the first page of “The Summer Book” we are gently introduced to Sophia – a precocious, inquisitive child with worldly questions and a bit of seething anger just underneath the skin, and her grandmother – wise, caring with sharp words with a glint of mischievousness in eyes and cigarettes in worn pockets.

Jansson captured the pace of summer life on a small remote island in the Gulf of Finland. Skillfully crafted words lull the reader into a quiet space of mind and place. Her keen observations (on both nature and humankind) are a gentle, compassionate soft punch to the stomach at times. Written with a naturalist eye and an obvious love of life on the Finnish coast, “The Summer Book” gives us a good reason to stop and take a few moments to enjoy the waning days of this season.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

By Stephen King
Scribner Book Company
$14
September 2020
Purchase

From the publisher: A mesmerizing tale of unjust imprisonment and offbeat escape, this is one of Stephen King’s most beloved and iconic stories, and it helped make Castle Rock a place readers would return to over and over again. Suspenseful, mysterious, and heart-wrenching, this iconic King novella, populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, is about a fiercely compelling convict named Andy Dufresne who is seeking his ultimate revenge. Originally published in 1982 in the collection “Different Seasons,” it was made into the film “The Shawshank Redemption” in 1994.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Let me be perfectly honest, I am not a Stephen King fan. I don’t know what (story) started it, but I have shied away from reading anything written by Mr. King for decades. Recently when I was stuck without something to read between “major” books, I asked my colleague (Hi, Thom!) for ideas, he suggested, again, this novella.

There isn’t much new to say about “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” other than if one hasn’t read it, put it on the list. The concise and powerful use of words tells a story of hope and determination. The characters are incredibly fully developed even though this is a very small book when compared to King’s other volumes. We are drawn in easily, willingly. There is a reason that King has been a writing monument for many years, he is seriously good at his craft.

First Frost

By Craig Johnson
Viking
$30
May 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: It’s the summer of 1964, and recent college graduates Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear read the writing on the wall and enlist to serve in the Vietnam War. As they catch a few final waves in California before reporting for duty, a sudden storm assaults the shores and capsizes a nearby cargo boat. Walt and Henry jump to action, but it’s soon revealed by the police who greet them ashore that the sunken boat carried valuable contraband from underground sources.

The boys, in their early 20s and in the peak of their physical prowess from playing college football for the last four years, head out on Route 66. The question, of course, is how far they will get before the consequences of their actions catch up to them—the answer being, not very.

Back in the present day, Walt is forced to speak before a judge following the fatal events of “The Longmire Defense.” With powerful enemies lurking behind the scenes, the sheriff of Absaroka County must consider his options if he wishes to finish the fight he started. Going back and forth between 1964 and the present day, Craig Johnson brings us a propulsive dual timeline as Walt Longmire stands in the crossfire of good and evil, law and anarchy, compassion and cruelty at two pivotal stages in his life.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Craig Johnson doesn’t disappoint with the latest volume in the Longmire series. In “First Frost” we seesaw between the past, where Longmire and his best friend, Standing Bear, do a good deed, or at least they think it’s a good deed, and how things play out decades later. The page-turning read shows just how decisions of years ago play an important part in where we all are today. The turmoil plays out cleverly, trying and strengthening the patience of friendships and the law. In quintessential Johnson style, there is subtle humor, point-on examination of the human psyche and the great cast of side characters that rarely get their due.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends books about natural wonders, growing hemp in Colorado and the Green River.

World of Wonders

By Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Author), Fumi Nakamura (Illustrator)
Milkweed Editions
$20
April 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted — no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape — she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

“What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: In a treasure of memoir and nature study, “World of Wonder” captures us immediately with quiet poise as the author shows us her wonderment of nature while giving us morsels of memories in her life. The tidy chapter on Touch-Me-Nots, a shy little plant that falls into itself when something brushes against it, took me back to the moment when my father pointed out the delicate gangly plant to my 6-year-old self. It was curious magic to watch the fronds fold in.

Nezhikumatathil’s writing opens our senses to that curious magic and gives us the opportunity to share in her admiration and awe of the natural world.

 Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West

By Finn Murphy
W. W. Norton & Co.
$17.99
June 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: After decades as a long-haul trucker, Finn Murphy left the road and settled in Boulder County, Colorado. Before long he noticed that many of his neighbors were captivated by the prospect of vast riches in “the Hemp Space.” When hemp was legalized, after 80 years in federal exile, Colorado became the center of a hemp growing and processing boom. Figuring he’d harvest some of that easy money, Murphy bought a thirty-six-acre farm. What could go wrong? Well, pretty much everything…

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Finn Murphy’s business acumen, entrepreneurial spirit and dry wit make “Rocky Mountain High” a very enjoyable read. With dollar signs in his eyes, the author jumps into the newly opened pastures of hemp in Colorado. The author’s on-the-spot observations of law, land and the mixed cast of individuals he meets along the way will bring a smile to the reader’s face and knowing nod of the head.

We are given an amusing schooling in what it’s like to start up an agriculture business in Boulder County during the boom of hemp farming. I envision this book as a manual being given to anyone who has that dream or idea of “making it big” regardless of the industry.

Downriver

By Heather Hansman
University of Chicago Press
$19.99
March 2019
Purchase

From the publisher: The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Over its course, it meanders through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some of the most significant natural gas fields in the country, as it provides water for 33 million people. Stopped up by dams, slaked off by irrigation, and dried up by cities, the Green is crucial, overused, and at-risk, now more than ever.

Fights over the river’s water, and what’s going to happen to it in the future, are longstanding, intractable, and only getting worse as the West gets hotter and drier and more people depend on the river with each passing year. As a former raft guide and an environmental reporter, Heather Hansman knew these fights were happening, but she felt driven to see them from a different perspective—from the river itself. So she set out on a journey, in a one-person inflatable pack raft, to paddle the river from source to confluence and see what the experience might teach her.

From Jeffery Payne, assisant retail manager: It is hard to escape the reality of what water means to us as we live, work and play here in Colorado and the West as a whole. In short, without water we are, well, hosed (sorry, couldn’t resist). Heather Hansman’s “Downriver” delves into the very complicated, twisty history of rivers in the West and our never-ending need to dam, tame and take what is “rightfully” ours.

We follow the author, an experienced raft guide, as she sets her raft in the headwaters of the Green River of Wyoming to learn more about the river itself and how vital it is to the region. Her interactions with not only the river but the people, land and industry that surround the Green illustrate how the teetering balance of need, neglect and overuse is woefully catching up with us all.

Hansman’s genial narrative shows us there are no easy answers to the countless number of tangled, muddy questions when it comes to water in the West. 

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends an environmental history, a 30-year-old Southern classic and Erik Larson’s take on Fort Sumter.

Fen, Bog & Swamp

By Annie Proulx
Scribner
$17.99
June 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: A lifelong acolyte of the natural world, Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important role they play in preserving the environment—by storing the carbon emissions that accelerate climate change. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are crucial to the earth’s survival, and in four illuminating parts, Proulx documents their systemic destruction in pursuit of profit.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Annie Proulx’s immense gift of creating heart-felt prose is well-known. She has the innate ability to capture the attention of the reader and lead them carefully into a story, encouraging them to lean into the world she so easily shares.

With “Fen, Bog and Swamp,” she conveys the urgency of how we are losing yet another fragile piece of our ecosystem. Proulx shows just how much we are disconnected from our natural surroundings with our thoughtless and smug attitudes towards the land we reside upon. Her wakeup call allows us to see that we are slowly smothering and strangling the very things we need to truly survive.

Where the casual passerby might see a muddy quagmire, Proulx lightly guides us to see how important and vital the soggy and sodden land is.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

By John Berendt
Vintage
$18
June 1994
Purchase

From the publisher: Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: It is a challenge to comprehend that “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” is 30 years old. I remember picking up the book on a whim oh-so-many-years-ago – nonfiction really wasn’t my thing back then – and immediately I was hooked. And really, there isn’t anything new I can say about this marvelous book after all this time other than, if one hasn’t read the book, one must.

In honor of the book’s pivotal anniversary, I chose to read it again. A few pages in and I am lulled into a quiet place with the slow, melodic, dulcet tone of the author’s voice. It’s like sitting on the front porch, sipping sweet tea on a hot humid summer southern evening, swatting the flies, and listening to your favorite uncle share stories of his quirky neighborhood. At its heart, “Midnight” is more than the telling of a scandalous event that had the town whispering and gossiping. This seductively written account offers us a rare and candid glimpse into a time that is now lost in Savannah.

The Demon of Unrest

By Erik Larson
Crown Publishing Group
$35
April 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Larson’s skill in weaving several seemingly unrelated events and people into a cohesive and engaging story is outstanding. We witness the author’s uncanny knack of presenting the stories behind the story.

In “The Demons of Unrest” we are shown how the island of Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, played an important and pivotal role in the months leading up to the Civil War.

In true Larson style, the book reads like a suspense novel. He captures a time of growing anxiety and distrust. The presidential election, social upheaval and changing attitudes all add to growing discontent and unease. We are given insight into that time with details into the dynamics of the key players along with much lesser known individuals. A great exciting read for any history buff. 

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends titles built around the moon, an inherited gun and resurrection of the wooly mammoth.

 Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet

By Rebecca Boyle
Random House
$28.99
January 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: Many of us know that the Moon pulls on our oceans, driving the tides, but did you know that it smells like gunpowder? Or that it was essential to the development of science and religion? Acclaimed journalist Rebecca Boyle takes readers on a dazzling tour to reveal the intimate role that our 4.51-billion-year-old companion has played in our biological and cultural evolution.

Our Moon’s gravity stabilized Earth’s orbit — and its climate. It drew nutrients to the surface of the primordial ocean, where they fostered the evolution of complex life. The Moon continues to influence animal migration and reproduction, plants’ movements, and, possibly, the flow of the very blood in our veins.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Rebecca Boyle’s remarkable gift of breaking down lunar science and history into digestible bite-size, easy-to-understand pieces is incredible! Combining captivating prose with a wealth of knowledge, she shares the likely beginning of the moon (synestia anyone?) and gently explains just how inseparable the Earth and moon really are.

As this past week shows, the moon affects our daily lives. Coastal communities rely on tidal knowledge and timing, ancient civilizations revered the different phases of the nighttime celestial orb, Christians the world over celebrate Easter — ever a moving date based on the timing of the full moon — and just look up the origins of the word “lunatic.” We cannot get away from just how important the moon is to our lives.

“Our Moon” is an engaging exploration of our nearest astral neighbor, and more than once you will say to yourself, “Well, I never knew that” when you read this fascinating book.

Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West

By Bryce Andrews
Mariner Books
$18.99
February 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: Bryce Andrews was raised to do no harm. The son of a pacifist and conscientious objector, he moved from Seattle to Montana to tend livestock and the land as a cowboy. For a decade, he was happy. Yet, when Andrews inherited his grandfather’s Smith & Wesson revolver, he felt the weight of the violence braided into his chosen life. Other white men who’d come before him had turned firearms like this one against wildlife, wilderness, and the Indigenous peoples who had lived in these landscapes for millennia.

“Holding Fire” is a deeply felt memoir of one Western heart’s wild growth, and a personal testament to how things that seem permanent — inheritance, legacies of violence, forged steel — can change.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: “All guns are made for killing, but a handgun chambered in .357 Magnum has a yet more specific purpose. It wasn’t invented to kill deer or ducks…. This thing I carry is built for killing people.”

“Holding Fire” is more than a narrative about the meaning, familial past and transformation of a particular gun, it is a journal of a skilled rancher and hunter who has carried the weight (in all respects of the word) of having such a weapon nearby.

Andrews deftly blends the complicated, often brutal story of (white) men as they shoved their way into the West and his own personal conflict of once finding reassurance in having a weapon in hand. His sincere introspection helps us appreciate how challenging it is to balance traditions, ideas and living in the West.

Extinction

By Douglas Preston
Forge
$29.99
April 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire’s son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators.

As killings mount and the valley is evacuated, Cash and Colcord must confront an ancient, intelligent, and malevolent presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection — but extinction.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Douglas Preston once again brings his well-crafted writing to his upcoming release (I managed to get an advance copy!). Masterfully mixing fast-paced adventure and intrigue, we are presented with an enticing story that blurs today’s science with the age-old question, “Just because we can, should we?”

It’s so persuasive an idea that the reader is left with a nagging feeling that the unthinkable is possible and we just might regret how fast technology is moving forward. Cloning dinosaurs is one thing, but what if we tried resurrecting something more sophisticated?

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends books that look deeply into human relationships, but also our connections to wildlife.

So Late in the Day

By Claire Keegan
Grove Press
$20
November 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: “Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, Claire Keegan now gifts us three exquisite stories together forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics and an arc from Keegan’s earliest to her most recent work. In “So Late in the Day,” Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently; in “The Long and Painful Death” a writer’s arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Bèoll for a two-week writing residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his criticisms and opinions; and in “Antarctica” a married woman travels out of town to see what it’s like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger.’ Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and men: a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence.”

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: I am not a big fan of short stories. They often feel rushed and frantic. Tell the tale quickly. Move on.

Claire Keegan’s small yet powerful volume is a welcome and refreshing collection of three private and intimate pieces. With a steady and gracious hand, we are slowly dipped into stories that feel at once comfortable, languid and quietly nuanced. Her writing is exact and decisive, we feel the emotions she shares in her telling. What an incredible gift she bestows to the reader.

The Wise Hours

By Miriam Darlington
Tin House
$17.95
January 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: Owls have existed for over 60 million years, and in the relatively short time we have shared the planet with these majestic birds they have ignited the human imagination. But even as owls continue to captivate our collective consciousness, celebrated British nature writer Miriam Darlington finds herself struck by all she doesn’t know about the true nature of these enigmatic creatures.

In “The Wise Hours,” Darlington watches and listens to the natural world and to the rhythms of her home and family, inviting readers to discover the wonders of owls alongside her while rewilding our imagination with the mystery, fragility, and magnificence of all creatures.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Similar in tone to “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating,” by Elisabeth Tova Bailey, “The Wise Hours” is a brilliant mix of nature writing and memoir. The author’s pure affection and dedication to the mythically astute and knowing sage of the wilderness is heartfelt and catchy. For those of us who have experienced an unexpected encounter with the winged shaman of the night sky, we can relate, celebrate, and envy the author’s grand adventure in travel and discovery.

Poetically written, with the glee of a youngster uncovering a secret that she shouldn’t share, but luckily, dares to do so.

Return of the Bison: A Story of Survival, Restoration and a Wilder World

By Roger L. Di Silvestro
Mountaineers Books
$21.95
August 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: “Return of the Bison” is the story of how this symbol of the American West was once almost lost to history and of the continuing journey to bring bison back from the brink. Author and naturalist Roger Di Silvestro explores the complex history of the bison’s decimation and how a rising awareness of their possible extinction formed the roots of many modern wildlife conservation approaches. Weaving in natural history and fascinating historical context featuring personalities such as Teddy Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and William T. Hornaday, Di Silvestro traces the decades it took to begin to save the bison, often with little hope and plagued by discouraging setbacks. Di Silvestro explores the key role in the story of America’s Indigenous people, whose fate was intertwined with the bison’s and whose conservation work is important not only for the animal’s recovery but also for their own cultural renewal.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: The long and storied history of the life and near extinction of bison has many myths, tangents and challenges. Di Silvestro easily dissects those and creates a clear and concise picture of the once-wild beast that is such an icon of western lore. We acquire a deeper understanding of the very complicated relationship between the grand flocculent animal and the short-sightedness of mankind.

The likelihood of vast herds of bison ever returning is forever small. Di Silvestro gives us an optimistic outlook we could all use.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends a David Grann historical work, a look at roads’ impact on wildlife and some artistic career guidance.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

By David Grann
Doubleday Books
$30
April 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were 30 emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then … six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. “The Wager” is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: David Grann continues his winning streak of superb writing with “The Wager.” Rarely is there a talent that can transport us back in time, to a windy, rainy desolate island and convey the sense of dread and the endurance of the remarkable human spirit like the survivors of the shipwrecked Wager. Gann’s meticulous research of the sailor’s personal diaries is pieced together so well that we forget we are reading about a horrific experience over 280 years ago. One can feel the desperation, the glimmers of hope and the absolute will to make it back to their beloved England…and when they do…well, that’s when the real drama begins.

Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet

By Ben Goldfarb
W. W. Norton & Co.
$30
September 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they’re practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In “Crossings,” environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the U.S. alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roadkill.

Road ecologists are also seeking to blunt the destruction through innovative solutions. Goldfarb meets with conservationists building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads, engineers deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests, animal rehabbers caring for Tasmania’s car-orphaned wallabies, and community organizers working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: It astounds me the disconnect and idiocy that people have when it comes to nature and all things wild. Humankind (an oxymoron if you think about it) has been hell-bent on trying to make the animal kingdom and landscape yield and comply with our demands for centuries. “Crossings”delves into the innate connections between wildlife and their environment, and brings the need for “ecological corridors” front and center.

Mr. Goldfarb’s wit and passion for finding a balance between the destruction of natural pathways and the building of more and more roads — so we can get to where we want to be quickly, without inconvenience — comes without moralizing. He simply shows just how intertwined we are with nature, and the ramifications of ignoring that relationship. May we (especially the road engineers) all have the good sense to pay attention.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being

By Rick Rubin
Penguin Press
$32
January 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable.

Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Being a creative type is truly a blessing, and a curse. Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” gives us insight and keen observation into the processes of creativity and imaginative thinking. At times it feels more like reading a Buddhist text with his simple, approachable sense of understanding, perspectives and plops of enlightenment. The book is a mix of career guidance, self-help instruction, and inspirational devotional. Stuck on a project or piece? Just open the book randomly and find some direction. What I truly appreciate about the book is the permission he gives artists to do their craft without guilt or shame. Just experience the art, and enjoy the process.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books & Gifts in Colorado Springs recommends a meditation on a snail, a Longmire mystery and some river-running nonfiction.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

By Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
$16.99
September 2016
Purchase

From the publisher: In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her encounter with a Neohelix albolabris — a common woodland snail.

While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own place in the world.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant general manager: “I could have never guessed what would get me through this past year – a woodland snail and its offspring…”

It is unfortunate that sometimes it takes a turn of events to make us slow down and appreciate the small things in life. In this case the small thing is a snail. The author’s health strangely spirals downward quickly and she’s suddenly confined to bed. To her and our surprise, she is given comfort and patience through a tiny interloper on her bedside table. On her long journey to heal and understand what has happened to her body, we revel in her keen observations of the tiny creature, its world, and her growing realization of what is important.

It’s very challenging to define what genre this charming read is. Memoir? Nature Writing? Malacology Studies? Deeply poetic and lyrical, this unassuming humble book is an absolute treasure.

 The Longmire Defense

By Craig Johnson
Viking
$29
September 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: Sheriff Walt Longmire and Dog are called on a routine search and rescue to Wyoming’s Big­horn Mountains, where Walt finds himself on a rock outcropping remembering when his father told him about the first time he saw a man die. In the late ’40s, Bill Sutherland was shot but the investigation was stymied because no mem­ber of the elk camp — where he was found — was carrying the caliber rifle that killed the state accountant. When Dog discovers the miss­ing weapon, the sheriff of Absaroka County is plunged headfirst into a cold case.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant general manager: Walt Longmire has had more than his share of personal demons and in the latest book in the great series by Craig Johnson, those demons and some forgotten memories touch a bit close to home and family.

Johnson’s lucid storytelling somehow improves with each new book. His ability to capture the pure essence of the Wyoming landscape and the charming cast of characters is always a delight to read.  There are several subplots going on in this book, but Johnson deftly explores each tangent easily. I tried my best to not finish the book in one sitting, but I failed.

Brave The Wild River

By Melissa L. Sevigny
W. W. Norton & Co.
$30
May 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition held a tantalizing appeal: no one had yet surveyed the plant life of the Grand Canyon, and they were determined to be the first.

Through the vibrant letters and diaries of the two women, science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny traces their daring forty-three-day journey down the river, during which they meticulously cataloged the thorny plants that thrived in the Grand Canyon’s secret nooks and crannies.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant general manager: “Brave the Wild River” is less about what Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter did in exploring and discovering the plant life along the Colorado River thant how they did it.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to experience the Grand Canyon, up close and personal, not just viewing from the southern rim of the vast chasm, knows the absolute force of nature it holds. Shoving their way into its harsh, brittle, and seemingly barren immenseness, two strong-willed botanists turned explorers cast off the conventions and attitudes of 1930’s to profile and catalog the richness of the canyon.

This well-written book is more than about botany, adventure, and the wilds of the southwest; it shows the struggle of gender inequity that many have faced and continue to face. The phrase, “nevertheless, she persisted” comes to mind when reading this one.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends a book on the “why” of poetry, a meditation on an owl that becomes family and a Venice murder mystery.

Catching the Light

By Joy Harjo
Yale University Press
$18
October 2022
Purchase

From the publisher: In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her 50 years as a poet. Composed of intimate vignettes that take us through the author’s life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and memory — in both the private, individual journey and as a vehicle for prophetic, public witness.

From Jeffery Payne, Assistant General Manager: Ask an artist why they create and write, they will surely pause while they search for thoughts and words that can adequately describe their motive. When Joy Harjo was asked, she replied with a marvelous little book that shows her artistry and heart really don’t have the choice not to say anything. It’s like breathing, it must happen. Through grit her perceptive words speak to the many memories and challenges she has witnessed and through grace we share in the wisdom she has learned living through them. This reflective and compassionate account of essays allows us a rare glimpse into Harjo’s incredible talent.

Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe

By Carl Safina
W.W. Norton & Company
$32.50
October 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they’d rescued, she’d be a temporary presence. But Alfie’s feathers were not growing correctly, requiring prolonged care. As Alfie grew and gained strength, she became a part of the family, joining a menagerie of dogs and chickens and making a home for herself in the backyard. Carl and Patricia began to realize that the healing was mutual; Alfie had been braided into their world, and was now pulling them into hers.

From Jeffery Payne, Assistant General Manager: Those of us who are fortunate enough to interact with undomesticated, perhaps even wild fauna, treasure, and are often surprised by, those moments when there is an unexpected connection made with an untamed creature. Through Safina’s astute and keen writing we can join in his journey of discovery, awe, and appreciation as the devotion between him and little Alfie grows. Intermingled with a schooling in world religions and philosophy, this insightful read will make one think twice before shooing away that pesky squirrel or squawking blue jay.

Death at La Fenice

By Donna Leon
Harper Perennial
$17.99
July 2004
Purchase

From the publisher: There is little violent crime in Venice, a serenely beautiful floating city of mystery and magic, history and decay. But the evil that does occasionally rear its head is the jurisdiction of Guido Brunetti, the suave, urbane vice-commissario of police and a genius at detection. Now all of his admirable abilities must come into play in the deadly affair of Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor who died painfully from cyanide poisoning during an intermission at La Fenice.

From Jeffery Payne, Assistant General Manager: Yes, I know, Donna Leon has been writing (terrifically) for nearly two decades but only recently have I picked up her first book on a whim to read something different and I am so glad I did. What I enjoyed the most about reading “Death at La Fenice” was the gentle stepping back in time when there were no cell phones readily available, characters are succinctly developed and there isn’t a sense of “hurry” in solving the dastardly deed. Leon presents a nonchalant Venice that gives the reader a true sense of what living there must feel like. As the story and sleuthing develops, we see that fear is the basis of so much heartbreak and unkindness. If you are in need of a new reading diversion, pick up this great series.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.